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PROCKKDINGS 



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IIISTDPJCAL SOCIETY OF PENXSYLVAXIA 



PRESEXTATIOX OF THE PENiX P^VPERX 



ADDRKSS UF 



CRAIG BIDDLE 



[iMAKCIl loTii, 1873.] 




I ■ 1 1 1 1 A 1 ) 1; I r 1 1 1 A : 

msroRicAL scxiKTv or Pennsylvania. 

820 Si'RUCE SlRKET. 
•873- 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA ' 



ON THE 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS, 



AND 
ADDRESS OF 

CRAIG BIDDER 

[MARCH lOTH, 1873.J 



§ fe aaJLAowv 



Tin- PRUSCXTATION OF THE PEXN PAPERS. 



Hai.i, or THE Historical Society, 
Philadelphia, March loth, 1873. 

At eight o'clock, p. m., the Hall being- then filled to its 
utmost capacity, in the absence of the President, Mr. John 
William Wallace, the Senior Vice-President, Benjamin H. 
Coates, M.D., took the chair. 

The usual order of business having been dispensed 
with, Mr. Isaac Norris read the following communication : 

To THE President and Members of the 

Historical Society of Pennsylvania : 

Some time in the month of August, 1870, it came to the 
knowledge of several of our members that a large number of 
original letters, manuscript documents, charters, grants, printed 
papers, rare books and pamphlets, relating to William Penn and 
the Proprietary family, were being offered for sale in England. 
They at once caused these papers to be examined, and they were 
reported to contain matters of the highest historical interest to 
our State. 

Deeming our Society to be their proper custodian, a sufficient 
amount of money was raised by private subscription to secure 
them, and they became the property of the contributors to the 
fund. On behalf of these contributors I beg leave now to pre- 
sent them to the Society. 

The collection is so large that the classification and binding 
is not as yet completed, and the contributors would, therefore, 
wish that they should remain under their present control until 
that is effected. 

I am further directed to say to the Society that the same con- 
tributors have employed Mr. H. G. Somerby, of London, a 
competent genealogist, to prepare an illuminated genealogy of 

7 



8 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 



the Pcnn family, which it is their desire should be considered, 

when finished, as part of the present contribution. 

On behalf of the following contributors. 

Isaac Norris, C/i airman. 
Philadelphia, March \oth, 1S73. 

Alfred Cope, 



John Willia.m Wallace, 

J. GiLLINGHAM FeLL, 

John Jordan, Jr., 
Hknry C. Gibson, 
Thomas A. Scott, 
Matthew Baird, 
William Sellers & Co., 
Clement Biddle, 
George W. Norris, M.D., 
Henry C. Lea, 
Charles E. Smith, 
Franklin B. Gowen, 
J. Dickinson Logan, M.D., 

J. B. LiPPINCOTT & Co., 

Isaac Norris, 
John Jay Smith, 
E. W. Clarke & Co., 
Eli K. Price, 
John A. Brown, 
Lawrence S. Pepper, M.D., 
Isaac Lea, 
Gf:orge W. Childs, 
William M. Baird, 
John Farnum, 
John T. Lewis, 
John J. Thompson, 
Thomas Sparks, 
Charles Yarnall, 
Aubrey H. Smith, 
Evan Randolph, 
Charles H. Hutchinson, 
Ferdinand J. Dreer, 
Edward C. KNii;Hr, 



William Struthers, 
Charles J. Peterson, 
George B. Wood, M.D., 
J. Francis Fisher, 
John S. Newbold, 
S. K. AsHTON, M.D., 
Frederick D. Stone, 
John A. McAllister, 
Benjamin H. Coates, M.D., 
William J. Horstmann, 
Archibald Campbell, 
Willia.m T. Carter, 
Furman Sheppard, 
J. Dickinson Sergeant, 
E. Spencer Miller, 
Henry C. Townsend, 
James L. Claghorn, 
John O. Ja.mes, 
David S. Brown, 
Samuel Chew, 
George W. Biddle, 
Charles M. Morris, 
William P. Cresson, 
John Clayton, 
Samuel L, Smedley, 
John McAllister, Jr., 
Lewis A. Scott, 
Henry H. Bingham, 
Morton McMichael, 
Edmund S.mith, 
Charles J. Lukens, 
Townsend Ward, 
Israel Pemberion, 
Ailm. J. L. Lardner, U.S.N. 



Mr. Craig Biddle, at the conclusion of tl.e reading, rose and 
addressed the Sociyty as follows : 



ADDRESS. 



HAVING lately had an opportunity to read the letter 
accompanying- the gift of the Penn papers which 
you have just heard, I was struck by the extreme modesty 
of its phraseology, and I said, that while I fully appreciated 
the unostentatious mode of giving, so characteristic of our 
rich men, and thought it highly commendable for the 
donors to speak of their gift in such terms of moderation, 
yet it seemed to me that our Society should not receive 
one of the most extensive collections of original papers 
now extant, obtained at a large pecuniary outlay, without 
expressing their high appreciation of its value. 

Like most people who make a suggestion to our friend, 
Mr. Ward, on any matter relating to the Society, I found 
myself at once enlisted by those in authority over us to 
carry it out. I appear before you, therefore, not as a 
volunteer, but as one who feels bound to respond to any 
request of the gentlemen to whose exertions I think our 
Society is so much indebted. 

The collection of papers is so vast that it is impossible 
at present to estimate its full value. 

There are at least twenty thousand separate docu- 
ments, of which those in manuscript will fill one hundred 
fair-sized volumes. There are original letters from all 
thePenns — William, the founder, Hannah, Thomas, John, 
Richard, Springett, and William Penn, Jr. Their corre- 
spondents are the Governors of Penns)lvania, for the time 
being, and most of the men of any note in the Province, 
or who history tells us had any relation elsewhere wiili 
the Penn family. 

9 



10 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

Penn himself was a most prolific writer, mainly, of 
course, on controversial subjects. His essays on these 
topics compare favorably with those of an)- of the great 
defenders of their faith, who fought their fight in the days 
of old, asking no quarter and giving none. The titles of 
his. works were, in accordance with the fashion of the day, 
quaint but expressive. His first work was called, "Truth 
Exalted in a short but sure Testimony against all those 
Religious Faiths and Worships that have been formed 
and followed in the Darkness of Apostacy, and for that 
glorious Light which is now risen, and Shines forth in the 
Light and Doctrine of the despised Quakers, as the alone 
good old Way of Life and Salvation." He afterwards, 
among others, published* "The Sandy Foundation 
Shaken;" "No Cross, No Crown;" "Innocency, with 
her Open Face ; " and, in answer to a work called " Con- 
troversy Ended," he wrote, " A Winding Sheet for Con- 
troversy Ended," and retorted upon the author of "The 
Quaker's Last Shift Found Out," in a pamphlet entitled, 
" Naked Truth Needs no Shift." 

His works are all full of striking passages, evincing 
deep relkction and accurate observation. What better 
definition of a free cfovernment could we ask than will 
be found in the preface to his frame of government? 
" I know wluit is said by the several admirers of mon- 
archy, aristocracy, and democracy, which are the rule of 
one, of a few, and of many, and are the three common 
ideas of government, when men discourse on that subject. 
But I choose to solve the controversy with this small dis- 
tinction, and it belongs to all three : Any government is 
free to the people under it, whatever be the frame, where 
the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws ; 
and more than this is t\ranny, oligarchy, and confusion." 
What wiser or nobler advice to a wile and children can 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. II 

be found anywhere than in his admirable letter to his 
family, in 16S2, when he was about to sail for America? 
I refrain from quoting it all for its length, and any extracts 
would but mar it. His letter to William Popple is also a 
highly felicitous composition, in which he defends himself 
with great moderation and dignity from the charges made 
against him, and expresses himself with equal elegance and 
force. Many of his phrases took the form of apothegms, 
and have a strong hold yet of the popular mind. " The 
saying is, that he who gives to the poor lends to the 
Lord ; but it may be said, not improperly, the Lord lends 
to us to give to the poor." "Let us not flatter ourselves; 
we can never be the better for our religion, if our neigh- 
bor be the worse for it ; " "He that suffers his difference 
with his neighbor about the other world to carry him 
beyond the line of moderation in this, is the worse for his 
opinion, even if it be true," are phrases I have taken 
almost at random from his works, of which I have not 
enumerated a tenth part. They show the value of his 
compositions, even in a literary point of view, and en- 
hance the importance of our present acquisition. 

The papers relative to the boundaries of Pennsylvania 
in dispute with Lord Baltimore are very voluminous. As 
this dispute required a most elaborate investigation of the 
then existing charters for lands in this country, the papers 
connected widi It are generally official copies of docu- 
ments, of equal value as to accuracy of detail and state- 
ment with the originals. This long dispute was, as you 
know, upon two points. Lord Baltimore's grant was fifty 
years prior to Penn's ; but in it the lands planted or in 
])Ossession of any Christian people were excepted, which 
I^enn alleged applied to the three lower counties on the 
Delaware River settled by the Dutch, and now constituting 
the State of Delaware. This point, a highly important 



12 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

one, was decided in Penn's favor in 16S5, ^^^ ^^^ sorts of 
delays were thrown in the way of the execution of the 
order of Council, and it was a long- time before the ques- 
tion was finally set at rest. The other point in dispute 
was the boundary line between Pennsylvania and Mar)'- 
land. The question was as to the construction of the 
expression, forty degrees of latitude. The Maryland 
grant was " to the fortieth degree of latitude," which Lord 
Baltimore alleged was to " forty degrees compleat." The 
Pennsylvania grant was " to begin at the beginning of the 
fortieth degree," which the Penns contended was just after 
the thirty-ninth degree was completed. The contest was, 
therefore, for a degree of latitude, or sixty-nine English 
miles. 

The dispute upon this point was never adjusted until 
long after Penn's death, when two distinguished mathe- 
maticians, who had just returned from the Cape of Good 
Hope, where they had gone to observe the transit of 
Venus, were employed to settle and mark out the line. 
These gentlemen, named respectively Charles Mason and 
Jeremiah Dixon, appear to have performed the work very 
satisfactorily, for although the line they ran gave to 
neither party what he claimed, it was never afterwards 
disturbed, except for the renewal of the ancient landmarks. 
While they thus settled a boundary question between two 
provinces, these men of science little thought they were 
dividing a great nation, and that for a hundred years their 
names would be as familiar as a household word in every 
part of it. Put " Mason and Dixon's line " has now lost, 
and I trust forever, all national importance, and these 
worthy madiematicians must rest their claim to be remem- 
bered hereafter on having setded a dispute between Penn 
and Baltimore, and observed the transit of a planet from 
the coast of Africa. 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. I3 

The papers relating to the Indians are also very 
numerous, includincr a ofreat deal of information re^jardinir 
the celebrated " Indian walk." These papers have been 
sufficiendy e.vamined to show that the extent of the walk 
has been grossly exaggerated, being not much longer 
than many men in our degenerate days are capable of 
taking, and the extent of land acquired very much less 
than is generally believed. The subject, however, will be 
made one of special comment hereafter, and I will not 
anticipate its discussion. 

In matters of curiosity, there are no end of treasures, 
which will gratify the admirers \Df autographs and the 
enthusiastic antiquarians. We have receipts here ac- 
knowledging the annual payment of rent for the province 
of Pennsylvania ; for under the feudal system Penn could 
only be a tenant, and he seems to have paid his " two 
beaver skins to the king, at his palace of Windsor," witJi 
all the regularity of a tenant of our day, who has agreed 
to forego the benefit of the exemption laws. Then there 
are petidons to the king bearing the names of all the 
principal people in the province ; among others, a peti- 
tion praying for the restoration of Penn, when, for a time, 
the government had been taken from him — a docu- 
ment, by the way, of historical interest, not known ever to 
have been printed, and the existence of which was 
doubted. Also, a list of the original purchasers, giving 
their Encrlish residences — a want Ioul: felt in tracin^f 
their ancestry. 

Then we have all the cash books, journals, letter books, 
receipt books, and commonplace books of Penn himself. 
And let us not undervalue the least of these, for the most 
charmino^ contribution to the literature recrardincr Penn is 
the discourse delivered before the Society by our late 
distinguished fellow-member, Mr. Joshua P'rancis Fisher, 



14 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS, 

on the "The Private Life and Domestic Habits of WilHam 
IVnn, as developed in his cash book and letters of busi- 
ness to his agents in Pennsylvania." This was written in 
1836, and gives one a better idea of Penn " in his habit as 
he lived " than any book with which I am acquainted. 
Penn has been particularly unfortunate in the manner in 
which he has been presented to posterity — not in his 
religious or political character, but in his personal ap- 
]jearance and manners. The popular impression of Penn, 
1 will venture to say, is of a heavy, stolid man, weighing 
about two hundred and fifty pounds, and dressed in the 
sternest costume of the strictest member of the sect of 
our day. It is scarcely possible to have a more false 
impression of him. Penn was the son of one of the 
grand old admirals of the Commonwealth, and had 
received all the advantasfes of a liberal education. He 
had been attached to the vice-refral court of the Duke 
of Ormond, in Ireland, who was one of the few nobles 
who retained in the dissolute court of Charles II. the 
decorous gravity and propriety of behavior in vogue 
during the reign of Charles I. He then visited the court 
ot P'rance, at that time under the sway of the magnificent 
Louis XIV., and returned, even to the critical eye of a 
woman — the wife of Pepys — "a most modish person, 
grown quite a fine gentleman." It was while with the 
Duke of Ormond that the likeness now in the possession 
of the Society was painted. He was then in the full 
bloom of youth, but twenty-two years of age, and clad in 
a suit ot mail. Attractive as this picture is, it gives one 
but litde aid in forming a conception of the earnest. God- 
fearing preacher and statesman. The other picture of 
him best known, is that in "West's celebrated painting 
of the Treaty under the Elm, at Kensington." Penn was 
then thirty-eight years of age, light and graceful in form. 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 15 

and, according- to the testimony of Mrs. Preston, at whose 
wedding- he was a guest, "the handsomest, best-looking, 
and most hvely gentleman she had ever seen." Justice 
to the memory of Mrs. Preston requires us to believe 
that she never could have used these adjectives in rela- 
tion to the stout old Quaker gentleman i-n this picture, 
dressed in the costume of Mr. West's lather. The rules 
of the Quakers never prescribed any particular costume; 
and in reading of their persecutions you will hnd they 
are again and again spoken of as being recognized as 
members of the Society by their speech, but never by 
their apparel. Penn undoubtedly then dressed in the 
costume of the time in which he lived, probably avoiding, 
as most serious people do, the excesses of fashion. 

It is due, however, to Benjamin West, who was our 
fellow-countryman, to say that if any of his contemporaries 
had painted the picture, Penn would probably have had 
less clothes on than the Indians themselves. Historical 
pictures tUcn required the most severely classical handling, 
and West, to his honor be it said, was the first to violate 
this rule of art. 

When he painted the " Death of Wolf," and it was 
understood, in London, that he was going to paint the 
characters as they actually appeared, the excitement was 
very great, and the account of it, as given in the words 
of West by Allan Cunningham, is so curious that I cannot 
refrain from quoting it: "When it ws-s understood," said 
the artist, "that I intended to paint the characters as they 
had actually appeared on the scene, the Archbishop of 
York called on Reynolds and asked his opinion, and they 
both came to my house to dissuade me from running so 
great a risk. Reynolds began a very ingenious and ele- 
gant dissertation on the state of the public taste in this 
countr)-, and the danger which every innovation Incurred 



l6 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

of contempt and ridicule, and concluded by ur<;ing me 
earnestly to adopt the costume of antiquity, as more 
becoming the greatness of my subject than the modern 
garb of European warriors. I answered that the event 
to be commemorated happened in the year 1758, in a 
rejjion of the world unknown to the Greeks and Romans, 
and at a period when no warriors, who wore such cos- 
tume, existed. The subject I have to represent is a great 
battle fouirht and won, and the same truth which mves 
law to the historian should rule the painter. If, instead 
of the facts of the action, I use fiction, how shall I be 
understood by posterity? The classic dress is certainly 
picturesque, but in losing it I shall lose in sentiment what 
I gain in external grace. I want to mark the place, the 
time, and the people, and to do this must abide by truth. 
They went away then and returned when I had the 
painting finished. Reynolds seated himself before the 
picture, examined it with deep and minute attention for 
half an hour, then rising, said to Drummond, '^Vest has 
conquered ; he has treated the subject as it ought to 
be treated ; I retract my objections. I foresee that this 
picture will not only become one of the most popular, but 
will occasion a revolution in art.' " " I wish," said the 
king, " I had known all diis before, for the objection has 
been the means of Lord Grosvenor's getting the picture ; 
but you shall make a copy for me." So prophetic were 
these words of Reynolds that when Barry completed his 
picture of the same subject, the contrast was fatal to 
it. Cunningham says, "A combat of naked men aston- 
ished the multitude, who knew all the regiments engaged 
and the cut of their regimentals," and the opinion was 
decided "that though in subjects of a poetic nature fancy 
may clothe as she pleases her own progeny, in historic 
productions the time and the people must be expressed. 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. IJ 

The soldiers of George II. mlL^ht as well have been repre- 
sented fighting those of Louis XV. on elephants' backs 
as in the nakedness of the Lapithae. Barry, who had 
shordy before been elected an associate of the Royal 
Academy, was so much offended with the way the picture 
was hung or talked about b)- his brethren, that he never 
sent another to their exhibition." 

The kindred art of poetry, too, down to the time of 
Addison, described the exploits of contemporary generals 
after the manner of Honier, and attributed their success 
not to their genius, nor even to heavier artillery, but 
to their personal prowess in the field. Imagine, if you 
can. General Grant, or Meade, or Moltke, or any of the 
great masters of modern strategy, bepraised after a suc- 
cessful battle in this fashion : 

** Churchill, viewing where 
The violence of Tallard most prevailed, 
Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 
Precipitate he rode, urging his way 
O'er hills of gasping heroes and fallen steeds 
Rolling in death. Destruction grim with blood 
Attends his furious course. Around his head 
The glowing balls play innocent, while he 
With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 
Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 
He dyes his reeking sword and strews the ground 
With headless ranks. What can they do? or iiow 
Withstand his wide destroying sword ? " 

Yet this is the way in which the poet Phillips hands 
down to fame the exploits of the great Marlborough on 
the field of Blenheim. 

While painting thus clothed its modern heroes in the 
garb of antiquity, and poetry gave them the prowess of 
demigods, the drama, strange to say, represented the 
ancients in the costume of the day. John Kemble per- 



l8 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

formed the character of Othello in the uniform of a major- 
general of the British army, and on the French stage 
Augustus Ccesar declaimed in a full-bottomed wig, sur- 
mounted by a crown of laurel. 

Although, therefore, West's picture of the "Treaty" 
does not represent the great elm tree at all, and Penn 
very unfaithfully, and does introduce houses built one 
hundred years later, and is altogether as great a work of 
imagination as his " Death on a Pale Horse," nevertheless 
it is a great historical painting, and is more like the 
original scene than, w^th the principles of high art then in 
vogue, we had any right to expect. 

It was this handsome, graceful, and accomplished man, 
w^ho one day informed his father that he had joined 
the Quakers ; or, as the Admiral would have expressed 
it, had become the disciple of a crazy fiekl-jjreacher 
named Fox, who was a shepherd by occupation, and 
the son of a weaver. Some authors have been dis- 
posed to cast reproaches upon the Admiral for his indig- 
nation upon this occasion, but to my mind he deserves 
none. Here was his eldest son, heir to a handsome 
estate, with the peerage full in view, graceful and accom- 
plished, where grace and accomplishments were the surest 
road to the sovereign's favor, destroying at a blow the 
ambition of his father's life. His long and arduous 
services to his country, and the personal regard of his 
sovereign, he could no longer hope to make available for 
the advancement of one who denounced all earthly 
honors as vain and frivolous, and who refused to uncover 
his head either to his father or his sovereign. Such 
resistance to parental control would try the temper of a 
father even in our day, when obedience to parents is 
considered more a graceful concession than the per- 
formance of a natural duty. What it was considered 
in that day, the pen of SmoUet can alone describe. 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. IQ 

But the Admiral, withal, was a God-fearin;: man, and 
when he found that it was a matt(,T of conscience with his 
son, he took him back to his house and honored and 
respected him. The only record of his feelings on the 
subject ever found is in a letter to his son, dated October 
6, 1660, where he records his submission to the will of 
Providence. He says: "If you are ordained to be 
another cross to me, God's will must be done, and I shall 
arm myself the best I can against it ; " a pathetic cry of 
the poor Admiral at the frustration of all his earthly 
hopes for his son, \yhich must find an echo in every 
parent's heart. 

And while speaking- of Admiral Penn, I desire to call 
the attention of the members of the Society to a state- 
ment regarding an original likeness of him, which ap- 
peared in a communication from Lancaster to the Port- 
folio for the year 18 15. It says: "There is an original 
portrait of the famous Admiral,- Sir William Penn, now in 
possession of one of the descendants of the late Dr. 
Benjamin Franklin,, in the city of Philadelphia. It is 
painted on board, and represents the Admiral as a middle- 
aged man, attired in the habit usually worn about the 
middle of the seventeenth century. As a painting it has 
no very great merit, the fine arts having been greatly 
depressed in England during the fanatical times in which 
it must have been painted ; it has, consequently, something 
of the Puritanical cast. But as it is doubtless an original 
picture, and probably the only one extant oi that cele- 
brated man, it is an interesting curiosity to the virtuoso — 
more especially so to 'a Pennsylvanian. This picture, it is 
alleged, was given to Dr. PVanklin by Lord Kames, 
somewhere about 1760, under the impression that it was 
a picture of our founder." Having been unable to dis- 
cover the whereabouts of this j)icture, I suggest that it is 
worthy of investigation by our Society. 



20 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

Pcnn, having; joined the Quakers, soon had occasion to 
have his firmness tried, and it was found fully equal to the 
emergency. He and Captain Meade, an old Cromwellian 
soldier, were arrested for preaching, and brought before 
the mayor, recorder, and a full bench of magistrates. 
Here their defence, which has been reported at length, is 
as fine a vindication of the liberty of the subject under the 
" Great Charter," as can be found in the books. Pcnn 
carried the jury with him, and, in spite of the threatenings, 
starvings, and fines which were administered, they stood 
firm against the whole gang of judges — a memorable 
instance, if any were needed, of the value of that great 
legacy of Saxon freedom, the trial by jury. It asserted its 
high prerogative when all other functions of government 
were hopelessly corrupt ; and unless modern ingenuity 
peryerts it into a court packed .in advance, it will always 
be the firmest bulwark of individual liberty. 

Penn was no idle servant in the cause which he took in 
hand, but lent himself to it with his whole heart. The 
persecutions of his sect were fearful, and, when one reads 
in the pages of " Besse " of the sufferings to which they 
were subjected, almost incredible. 

The Quakers, although they repudiated all forms and 
ceremonies, announced no heretical doctrines, and proba- 
bly would not have been subjected to violent persecution 
by the Established Church. Their persecution in Eng- 
land was not so much a religious one for heresy as a civil 
one for disobedience, not of the laws of God, but the law 
of the land. The refusal to take an oath, to take off their 
hats, or to use the second person plfiral, appear so harm- 
less in our day, that when we read of their being subjected 
to six and eight years' imprisonment for such offences, it 
seems hardly within the limits of belief The Quakers 
were, however, unfortunate in the time in which their sect 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 21 

originated and had its t-arl)- growth. Neitlier the govern- 
ment nor rehgion of England was stable during the reign 
of Charles I., the Cromwclls, Charles II., James II., 
William or Anne. The republicans and the monarchists, 
the Catholics and the Puritans, were all strivinof for 
mastery, and the offence which the ruling power for the 
time being considered the most serious, was any suspicion 
of disloyalty. To discover treason the magistrates at all 
times, when their suspicions were aroused, were authorized 
to tender to any one the oath of allegiance, called the test 
oath and the oath of supremacy. These oaths, in general 
terms, asserted the rightful claim of the monarch on the 
throne, and disowned the supreniacy of the Pope. There 
were certainly no class of people who could have taken 
these oaths with a" clearer conscience than the Quakers, 
for their religion not only inculcated the sinfulness of 
taking up arms against the government, but against any- 
body, and their special aversion was the Pope of Rome. 
The nature of the oath, however, was to them of no mo- 
ment, for they could take no oath at all. Their refusing 
to be uncovered and their use of a familiar pronoun was 
interpreted as a want of respect, not alone to the magis- 
trate before whom they were arraigned, but to the 
authority which he represented. Tbe Puritans had so 
mixed up civil and religious rights, that a monarchical 
justice of the peace had much greater suspicion of a saint 
than he had of a sinner. However much the latter might 
violate the laws of God, he was pretty certain to be faith- 
ful to the king, so that when the poor Quakers began to 
talk of their consciences to the loyal magistrate before 
whom they happened to be brought, they created as 
much consternation as if they had announced themselves 
to be related to " Praise God," or his worthy brother, " If 
Christ had not died for thee, thou wouldst have been 
damned, Barebones." 



r: FSESEXTATIOX OF THE PEXN FAPER5. 

It was in these emergencies that Penn was of such im- 
mense \-aIue to his people, and for these causes that he 
necessarily became to a certain extent a courtier. He 
was a personal friend of both Charles and James, and 
could explain to them and the high dignitaries of the 
church and state the true reason why the Quakers could 
not swear to support the government. The humble class 
of j>eople who then formed the bulk of the sect, would 
have sought this opportunity* in vain. The calls upon 
Penn were incessanL Ever\- man who had a £[Tud£:e 
against a Quaker so contrived it that an oath of allegiance 
?"- - ^e tendered him, knowing that his refusal to take 
i insure his imprisonmenL The magistrates, 
otfended at the wani of respect paid them, knew there 
was bat Utde risk of blame to them fbr too much zeal, 
when zeal in the cause of -the government was the one 
virtue required- Penn, therefore, for this reason, was 
constantly solicited by his sect and from his success in 
their behalf, by all those who were "desolate and op- 
pressed." It was this, among other causes, that made his 
5\ir.pathies so much wider than those of his contempo- 
raries, and decided him, when he came to be a lawgiver 
himself to make no man, in maners of conscience, the 
slave of another. 

Findinor it in vain to oi^Lan anv o-eneral relief lor his 
followers from the obligation of taking an oath, he en- 
couraged them to leave their countrs", and setde in New 
lersev. in the manasrement of which he and other mem- 
bers of the Societ}' had a considerable interest The 
experiment seeming successful, he determined to obtain a 
grant of the nearest unoccupied territor\*. where he could 
untrammelled earn* out his benevolent intentions to all 
mankind, Charies II.. who was always ready to pay a 
debt in anjthiag but money, at once agreed to discharge 



P«E5E!CTATIOX OF THE PENS PAPEE5. 2} 

certain obligations due the Admiral in wild lands, and 
crave Penn a charter for Penn5\'lvania. 

Penn'5 first care in forminor his orovemment was of 
co'jrse for religious toleration, for in his preaching and 
writing he had always maintained ** That whether the 
ground of a man's religious dissent be rational or not. 
severit}- is unjustifiable with him : for it is a maxim with 
sufferers that whoever is in the wrong the perse-:.:: r 
cannot be in the right." The first rojgh sketch, th-rt- 
fore, of his frame of government distributed to the pur- 
chasers before any of them had embarked, consisting of 
n\-ent\-four articles, was preceded by what he called his 

first or grei" - — - ----- *^ In reverence to 

God, the fa: - _ ; r author as well as 

object of all divine knowledge, faith, and worship, I do for 
me and mine declare and establish for tiie first funda- 
mental of the government of my pro\-ince. that ever\- 
person that doth and shall reside therein shall have and 
enjoy the free profession of his or her taidi and exercise 
of worship toward God. in such a way and manner as 
ever\- such person shall in conscience beHeve is most 
acceptable to God. And so long as ever\- such person 
useth not this Christian liberty to licentiousness or the 
destruction of others, that is to say, to speak loosely and 
profanely of God, Christ, the Holy Scripture, or religion, 
or commit any moral evil or injur\- against others, in 
their conversation, he or she shall be protected in the 
enjoNinent of the aforesaid Christian liberty- by the ci^-ii 
magistrate." 

This pro\ision substantially was one of those xh:.: .. 
determined in his charter should never be. char,, 
" .And because," he says. ~ the happiness of man - 
depends so much upon enio\"ing die liberties of their 
consciences as aforesaid. I do herebv solemnlv declare. 



24 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

promise, and grant, for me and my heirs and assigns, that 
the first article of this charter relating to liberty of con- 
science, and every part and clause therein, according to 
the true meaning and intent thereof, shall be kept and 
remain without any alteration, inviolable forever." 

But the enunciation of these doctrines by the apostle 
of an oppressed sect was not uncommon. Macaulay says 
of James II., " That he learned by rote the common- 
places which all sects repeat so fluently when they are 
enduring oppression and forget so easily when they are 
able to retaliate it." Penn's immense merit was that he 
never forgot those principles, and that he enforced them 
both as a civil magistrate and a religious teacher. In the 
neighboring province of Maryland, the toleration was 
restricted to those professing to believe in Jesus Christ, 
and however meritorious that amount of toleration was, 
we can scarcely suppose the province could have been 
obtained without it ; while Charles I. might have been 
willing, for the sake of his queen, to grant the province to 
one of" her faith, he would not have dared, or would 
Cromwell, who succeeded him, have consented to tolerate 
for a moment a Roman Catholic colony which denied 
religious rights to Protestants. With Calvert, therefore, 
toleration was a necessary concession ; with Penn a volun- 
tary one, as well as a principle of his Society. 

The mild and pious Roger Williams, who denounced 
the ecclesiastical tyranny of Massachusetts, and fled into 
the wilderness to avoid its intolerance, does not appear 
to have been able to impress his views to their fullest 
extent on the province of Rhode Island, of which he was 
the founder; for in the oldest printed copy of its laws 
now extant, the Roman Catholics are excepted from the 
enjoyment of freedom of conscience. 

It has been well said, that " intolerance formed a part 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 2$ 

of the very atmosphere of those times, and no one, not 
Luther or Calvyi or Cranmer, could escape its subtle 
infection. Cromwell complained that each sect cried out 
lustily for toleration, and when they had acquired it, 
would by no means allow it to any but themselves." 

The great Lord Chancellor Thurlow, the keeper of the 
conscience of King George III., and, with two or three 
other law lords, the ultimate arbiter of all religious ques- 
tions in England, when waited on in 1788 by a committee 
of dissenters, and asked to assist in the repeal of the 
corporation and test acts, said, with a tremendous oath, 
" I am for the Established Church, dam' me ; not that I 
have any more regard for that Church than any other, 
but because it is the Established Church. And if you 
can get your damned religion established, I will be for 
that too." 

This spirit of intolerance affected all the laws, and par- 
ticularly those concerning the most important relation 
of life, that of husband and wife. And on this subject 
the law was so uncertain that no one seemed able to find 
it out. Lord Stowell, in a famous case, decided that the 
presence of an Episcopally ordained priest was not neces- 
sary to constitute a valid marriage, and this decision, 
given in 181 1, having been subsequently approved by 
Lord Kenyon, Lord EUenborough, Lord Tenterden, and 
all the most eminent judges in England, was held to be 
good law, and millions of British dissenters availed them- 
selves of it to be married by the clergymen of their own 
persuasion. In 1S44, however, the validity ot the mar- 
riage in Ireland of a member of the Established Church 
to a Presbyterian, by a Presbyterian clergyman, followed 
by their living together as man and wife, artd having 
children, came before the courts on an indictment against 
the man for bigamy, he having niarried again his wife 
beinir still alive. 



26 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

The Irish judges were equally divided on the question 
whether the first marriage was legal or ry^t. The English 
judges were unanimously of opinion that it was null and 
void, and the question of its validity then came before 
tlie I louse of Lords. It was heard there before si.\ law 
lords, all of whom had received at different times the 
highest honors of the profession, the Lord Chancel- 
lor Lyndhurst, Lord Abinger, Lord Cottenham, Lord 
Brougham, Lord Denman, and Lord Campbell. Of these 
the three first were for declarino- the marriafre valid, and 
the three last for declaring it void. There not beinu- a 
majority for reversing the decision of the English judges, 
it was allowed to stand, and carried horror and dismay 
into numberless homes, where the parents found their 
union declared illej^al and their children illegitimate. 

One of our own judges, only a few days ago, was ap- 
pealed to to declare void a marriage celebrated in Ireland 
between parties of different faiths, and very properly 
refused to be instrumental to any such purpose. 

The Puritans who settled in New England, belonging 
to the earnest, moral, well-to-do middle class of England, 
to whoni civil liberty is so much indebted, never pretended 
any toleration of religion in the New World. President 
Oakes, in a sermon delivered in 1673, which will be found 
in Belknap's History of New Hampshire, says: "I look 
upon toleration as the first-born of all abominations; if it 
should be born and brought forth among us, )ou may 
call it Gad, and give the same reason that Leah did for 
the name of her son, ' Behold a troop cometh ; a troop 
of all manner of abominations,' " In another of these 
election sermons, " which may generally be accounted the 
echo of the public voice of the political pulse by which 
the popular opinion may be felt," it is shrewdly intimated 
that toleration had its origin from the Devil ; and the 



PRESENTATION OF THE I'ENN PAPERS. 2/ 

speech of the demoniac who cried out, "What have we 
to do with thee? let us alone, thou Jesus of Xazarcth," is 
styled Satan's plifc. Tor toleration. The Deputy-Governor 
of New Hampshire, Dudley, breaks into verse on this 
theme, and says : 

Let men of God in courts and churches watch 

O'er such as do a toleration hatch ; 

Lest that ill Egg bring forth a cockatrice, 

To poison all with heresy and vice. 

If men be left and otherwise combine, 

My Epitaph 's I die no libertine. 

The Quakers seem especially to have exasperated the 
Puritans beyond all measure. Cotton Mather, in his 
Ecclesiastical History of New England, devotes a chapter 
to them, which he heads " Ignes Fatui : or, the molestations 
given to the churches of New England by that odd sect 
of people called Quakers. And some uncomfortable 
occurrences relating to a sect of other and better 
people." He says : *' Now I know not whether the 
sect which hath appeared in our days under the 
name of Quakers, be not upon many accounts the 
worst of hcrcticks : for in Oiiakcrisfu, which has by 
some been called, the sink of all heresies, we see the vo7nit 
cast out in the by-past ages, b\' whose kennels of 
seducers, lick'd up again for a neio digestion, and once 
more exposed for the poisoning of mankind ; though 
it pretends unto liglit, yet by the means of that very 
pretence it leaves the bewildered souls of men iii 
ehains unto darkness, and gives them iij) to the conduct 
of an Ignis Fatnns: but this I know, they have been the 
most venomous of all the churches in America." 

The first law agfainst the Quakers in New Enirland was 
enacted at a general court lujjd at Boston in the year 
1656. The preamble commences, "Whereas, there is a 
cursed sect of hereticks lately risen uj) in the world, which 



28 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

are commonly called Quakers," and it then o-oes on to fix 
a fine of a hundred pounds on any master of a vessel 
brinf,nng them into the province, an4 dirtxts that the 
Quakers themselves shall be committed to the House of 
Correction and severely whipped, and the captain of the 
ship compelled to take them away. Other clauses affix 
penalties to importing or concealing their books or 
defending their opinions. 

On the 14th of October, 1657, another law, of a still 
more stringent character, was passed. After the usual 
complimentary preamble and affixing higher penalties on 
importing them, the law goes on to say, " And it is 
further ordered that if any Quaker or Quakers shall 
presume, after what they have once suffered what the law 
requireth such, to come into this jurisdiction, every male 
Quaker shall for the first offence have one of his ears cut 
off, and be kept at work in the House of Correction till 
he can be sent away at his own charge ; and for the 
second offence shall have his other ear cut off And 
every woman Quaker that has suffered the law here, 
that shall presume to come into this jurisdiction, shall be 
severely whipped and kept at the House of Correction at 
work till she be sent away at her own charge ; and so 
also for her coming again, she shall be alike used as 
aforesaid. And for every Quaker, he or she, that shall a 
third time herein again offend, they shall have their 
tongues bored through with an hot iron, and kept at the 
House of Correction close to work till they be sent away 
at their own charge ; and it is further ordered that all and 
every Quaker arising from among ourselves shall be dealt 
with and suffer the punishments as the law provides 
against foreign Quakers." 

By this law the female Quaker was allowed to keep 
her ears, but was whipped ; but both sexes had their 
tongues bored. I do not understand this distinction, 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 29 

unless in those days the women were more apt to talk 
than to listen ; and a whippin^j;- was a severer punishment 
than loss of ears. It would not, of course, be so now. 

Another law was passed in May, and one in October, 
1658; the latter more severe than any, as it made a 
return from banishment punishable by death ; and several 
were executed under it. 

Cotton Mather himself did not favor these laws. He 
says : " A great clamor has been raised against New 
England for their persecution of the Quakers, and if any 
man will appear in vindication of it, let him do as he 
please ; for my part, I will not. He was a wise and good 
counsellor in Plymouth Colony who proposed that a law 
might be made for the Quakers to have their heads 
shaved. The punishment, I confess, was in some sort 
capital ; but it would have been the best remedy for 
them — it would have both shamed and cured them ; or 
perhaps the punishment which Aulus Gellius reports the 
Romans on certain special occasions used on their soldiers 
to let 'em blood, had been very agreeable to these 
Quakers. A Bethlehem seems to have been better 
than a gallows." 

Shaving a man's head and bleeding him do not seem, 
at the present day, very great steps in the principle of 
toleration, but it was the mildest restriction upon liberty 
of worship that a clergyman of the Independents thought 
it judicious at that day to suggest. Shaving the head of 
a man who never took off his hat had, to be sure, some 
elements of merciful consideration in it ; but blood-letting 
would have been as disagreeable to a Quaker as to any 
other denomination of Christians. 

The truth of history requires us to admit that the 
Quakers of that day, perhaps driven to it by persecution, 
or led away by the general religious exaltation of the 



30 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

times affecting all sects, were by no means the inoffensive 
Society which they subsequently became under the guid- 
ance of educated men like Penn and Barclay, under whom, 
to use the words of an English divine, " they have since 
been able, with the most extraordinary success, to infuse 
the spirit and essence of George Fox's teachings into the 
very veins, as it were, of the modern world. They have 
all but put down slavery, and they are on the way, I hope, 
to put down war." 

The Quakers were originally an aggressive sect, and 
many of their practices were excessively»irritating. They 
had a fashion of declaring the truth in " Steeple Houses," 
as it was called ; which consisted in going into a church, 
and after, indeed sometimes before, the clergyman had 
concluded, denouncinsf him and his teachinirs to his own 
congregation. Then they had a way of doing very 
curious things by way of a "sign." Besse relates them 
in the list of the causes of Quaker persecution under the 
head of " Peculiar Cases." One of these " peculiar cases" 
is thus described: "On the 3d of the 3d month, 1655, 
Sarah Goldsmith being now moved to put on a coat of 
sackcloth of hair next to her, to uncover her head and 
put earth thereon, with her hair hanging down about her, 
and without any other clothes upon her, excepting shoes 
on her feet, and in that manner to go to every gate and 
through every street within the walls of the city, and 
afterwards to stand at the High Cross, in the view of the 
town 'And market, as a sign against the pride of Bristol, 
and to abide in that habit seven days." Not being habitu- 
ated to the sudden changes of female costume with which 
modern fashion has made us familiar, the people created 
a tunuilt, and she was taken before the mayor. To his 
interrogations she answered, " She had harmed none, and 
yet had been harmed ; neither have 1 broken any law by 



PRESENTATION OF THE I'ENN PAPERS. 3I 

wliich I can be brought under just censure ; if I had ap- 
peared in gay clothing, you would not have been 
troubled." She was, however, sent to Bridewell. An- 
other "peculiar case" was^that of Solomon Eccles, who 
was imprisoned for going into a Steeple House naked, 
as a sign unto the people; which action he said was done 
by him in obedience to the Lord's requirings. 

Alice Bowman, for speaking some words to the people 
in the Steeple House at the time of their taking what they 
call the Sacrament, was also punished by imprisonment. 

And Cotton Mather justifies the punishment of two 
Quaker women in strong, terse language, " because," he 
says, " they came stark naked as ever they were born 
into our publick assemblies, and they were (baggages as 
they were) adjudged unto the whipping post for that 
piece of deviltry." This, of course, was done by these 
ladies as a "sign;" but unhappily for them, it was not 
recognized as such by the Puritan intelligence. Having 
nothing to wear, did not then unfortunately exercise as 
great a restraint upon female movements as it does in 
our day, or this would probably not have occurred. The 
doctrine of the Holy Spirit speaking, as it were, within 
men, and guiding them into the way of truth, which was 
the great corner-stone of Quakerism, had this risk 
attached to it : that it was liable to be taken with too 
much latitude, in an ag^ of great religious excitement, by 
some who, mistaking their own ill-regulated impulses for 
divine promptings, brought a reproach upon the Society 
for actions which were not the legitimate result of its teach- 
ings. We cannot say that these things did not require 
regulation by the civil magistrates ; but the punishments 
mllicted were out of all proportion to the offence. 

And in tliis connection 1 am led to make some reflec- 
tions upon the humane character of Penn, who, in his 



32 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

criminal code, was far in advance of liis aL,^c and country. 
The English looked down upon, as they usually do, and 
reproached the rest of Europe with their tortures, their 
inquisitions, and their secret^tribunals ; while at as late a 
date as iSio, it was stated by Sir Samuel Romilly "that 
there was no other country in tlic world in which so many 
^and so great a variety of human actions were punished 
with loss of life as in England." A law of Elizabeth 
made it punishable by death to privately steal to the 
amount of twelve pence from the person, or to be seen 
for a month in the company of persons called Egypdans. 
Another, in the time of James I., made it a capital offence 
to commune with the Devil ; while a law in the time of 
George I. made it a capital crime to break down the 
mound of a fish-pond, or to cut down a cherry-tree in an 
orchard. These were not laws which were unrepealed 
because they were lost sight of; for when Sir Samuel 
Romilly attempted to repeal the law of William III., 
which made stealincr Sfoods to the value of five shillinors 
from a shop punishable with death, and the act of Queen 
Ann affixing the same penalty to stealing to the value of 
forty shillings from a dwelling, or the act of George II., 
extending it to navigable rivers, he was violently opposed 
by the chancellor and all the judges in England. And at 
that date (1810), according to Allison, there were over 
six hundred offences to which the penalty of death was 
affixed. 

The Puritans, on coming to the New World, rejected 
many of these laws ; but in their stead adopted those of 
Moses, and hung anybody whose execution could be 
justified by a text out of the Old Testament. These 
laws, therefore, were more sanguinary than those of 
England, and they were executed with more certainty. 
The doctrines of the New Testament do not seem to 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 33 

have met with as much encouragement ; for I nowhere 
find a precedent of an indictment "For not loving your 
neighbor as yourself," although this offence must some- 
times, one would suppose, have been committed even in 
New England. 

William Penn was of opinion that tlie deterring of 
others from offences must continue to be the great and 
indeed only end of punishment ; yet in a community pro- 
fessing itself Christian, the reformation of the oftender 
was to be inseparably connected with it. Hence he made 
but one capital offence, to wit: murder, wilful and pre- 
meditated ; and hence, also, all prisons were to be con- 
sidered workshops, where the offenders might be indus- 
triously, soberly, and morally employed. 

The now universal acquiescence in the justness of these 
views is the best evidence of their merit, and the highest 
compliment to the wisdom and benevolence of our eminent 
laworiver. 

He recognized in his laws also not only no sect of 
Christians, but no race of men ; and this was the secret 
of his success in his treatment of the Indians. His claim 
to distinction amontr the founders of States was not that 
he made treaties, but that he kept them. An infant colony 
landing in an inhabited country would naturally conciliate 
the natives by the purchase of their lands, if that course 
was open to them. No one would be so blind as to use 
gunpowder, lead, and flints for hostile purposes, when 
they could be made legal-tenders for the purchase of 
land. The Swedes and the Dutch, and the English, who 
had governed the country for eighteen years under the 
Duke of York, had obtained their lands by fair purchase, 
and the actual site of Philadelphia itself had been acquired 
from the Indians by three Swedes, the Swensons, who 
sold it to Penn. The merit of Penn stantls upon much 
3 



34 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS, 

hig-her grounds, as is well put by Mr. Fisher and Mr. 
Duponceau. In their discussion of the great treaty, they 
say: "The true merit of William Penn, that in which he 
surpasses all the founders of empires, whose names are 
recorded in ancient or modern history, is not in having 
made treaties with or purchased lands of the Indians, but 
in the honesty, integrity, the strict justice with which he 
constantly treated the aborigines of the land ; in the fair- 
ness of all his dealings with them ; in the faithful perform- 
ance of his promises ; in the ascendancy which he 
acquired over their untutored minds ; in the feelings of 
gratitude wMth which his conduct and character inspired 
them, and which they, through successive generations, 
until their final disappearance from our soil, never could 
or did forget, and to the last moment kept alive in their 
memories." That this principle was the true one, we 
have the evidence of Oldmixon, who, writing in 1708, 
says: "The Indians have been very civil to the Pennsyl- 
vanians, who never lost man, woman, or child by them, 
which neither the colony of Maryland nor that of Virginia 
can say, no more than the great colony of New England." 
And now, in 1872, after over two hundred years' inter- 
course with these people in all parts of our vast country, 
our present chief magistrate, whose training would 
naturally incline him to sterner modes of treatment, falls 
back upon the principles of our founder, and has called 
upon his descendants to carry them out. After a year's 
trial, in his annual message to Congress, he thus states the 
result : 

"The policy which was adopted at the beginning of 
this administration, with regard to the management of 
the Indians, has been as successful as its most ardent 
friends anticipated in so short a time. It has reduced 
the expense of their management, decreased their forays 
upon the white setdements, tended to give the largest 



PRESENTATION OF THE PENN TAPERS. 35 

Opportunity for tlie extension of tlie i^^reat railways 
through the public domain, and the pushinL^- of settle- 
ments into more remote districts of the country, at the 
same time improving the condition of the Indians. The 
policy will be maintained without any change, excepting 
such as lurther experience may show to be necessary to 
render it more eftective." 

These things which I have said of Penn are not new, 
and are especially familiar to the members of our Society ; 
but I have felt it of no disadvantao-e to recall them. The 
venerable Heckewelder tells us that for a hundred years 
after Penn's arrival in this country, the Indians frequently 
assembled together in the woods, in some shady spot as 
near as possible similar to those where they used to meet 
their brother Miquon ^enn), and there lay all his words 
or speeches on a blanket or clean piece of bark, and with 
great satisfaction go successively over the whole. It is 
well for us to follow this example occasionally, and to try 
to reinvigorate the lax principles of modern society by a 
contemplation of the purity, toleration, and great manli- 
ness of Penn's character. For the latter quality he was 
a fine example. In all his trials he defended himself not 
only with great ability, but great boldness ; and, while the 
friend of successive sovereigns of England, he never 
truckled to them or bartered his principles for thair favor. 
He was the warmest friend of that stern republican, 
Algernon Sydney; and both by his pen and voice urged 
his election to Parliament against the chosen candidate 
of the very court in whose graces it was his highest 
personal interest to stand well. And when William III. 
came to the throne, and he was arraigned for his friend- 
ship to the fallen James, he asserted what his conduct in 
regard to Sydney had proved, that although King James 
was his friend and his father's friend, it had never intlu- 



36 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

enccd him in liis conduct to his country and his religion. 
And it was a noble boast of his Society and himself, that 
" in the hottest times of persecudon, and the most violent 
j)rosccutions of those laws made against meetings, they 
have boldly stood to their testimony for God without 
creeping into holes or corners, or once hiding themselves 
as all otiicr dissenters have done." 

Can we say at the present day that we have maintained 
the toleration of the opinions of others, and the manly 
expression of our own, for which Penn was so pre-emi- 
nent? In religious matters perhaps we have; for no 
sect is sufficiendy predominant to oppress others, even if 
they had the disposition to do so ; but in secular matters 
we fall far short of him ; we have neither his toleration 
nor his manhood. % 

The cry of "principles not men" has induced us to 
believe that the assumption of our principles entides a 
man to our support, no matter how unfit he may be to 
carry them out. The sincerity of what he calls his con- 
vicdons is never considered. The tendency of modern 
reform is to suppose that good laws make good govern- 
ments, and that it is only necessary to patch up the sup- 
posed defects in a statute or a constitudon to make it 
work to our entire sadsfaction. The age is so material 
that every function of government is assimilated to a 
machine, which must work well if properly constructed. 
But In the machine of government, man is the modve 
power ; and if the deficiency be there, the most perfect 
machine in the world is of no use. Penn saw this, and 
said, two hundred years ago, "Wherefore governments 
rather depend on men dian men upon governments. 
Let the men be good, and the government cannot be bad. 
If it be ill, they will cure it; but if men be bad, let the 
government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp 
and spoil it to their use. 



PRESENTATION OF THE P E N N PAPERS. 37 

"1 know sonu; say. let us have L;"ood laws, and no maltcr 
for the men that execute them ; but let them c(Misider 
that though good laws do well, good men do better ; for 
good laws may want good men, and be abolished or 
evaded by ill men ; but good men will never want good 
laws, or suffer ill opes. It is true good laws have some 
awe upon ill ministers ; but that is where they have not 
power to escape or abolish them, and the people are 
generally wise and good ; but a loose and depraved peo- 
ple (which is to the question) love laws and an adminis- 
tration like themselves. That, therefore, which makes a 
good constitution must keep it, viz. : men of wisdom and 
virtue, qualities that, because they descend not with 
worldly inheritances, must be carefully propagated by a 
virtuous education of youth." 

What we really now want is not new laws or constitu- 
tions, but men to execute those we already have. 

That shrewdest of all foreign observers of Amt-rican 
institutions, Dg Tocqueville, says : "1 know no country 
in which there is so little independence of mind an^l 
freedom of discussion as in America, The majority 
raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion ; 
within these barriers an author may write whatever he 
pleases, but he will repent it it he ever steps beyond 
them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an au/o 
da fe ; but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions 
of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, 
since he has offended the only authority which is able to 
promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even 
that of celebrity, is denied him. Before he published his 
opinions, he imagined he had them in common with many 
others ; but no sooner has he declared them openly, than 
he is loudly condemned b\' his overbearing opponents, 
while those who think, without havinLT the courage to 



38 PRESENTATION OF THE PENN PAPERS. 

speak, like liim, abandon him in silence. He yields at 
length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making-, 
and he subsides into silence as if he was tormented by 
remorse from having spoken the t'ruth. In that immense 
crowd which throngs the avenues to favor in the United 
States, I found very few who displayed any of that manl)' 
candor, and that masculine independence of opinion, 
which frequently distinguished the Americans in former 
times, and which constitute the leading features in distin- 
guished characters wherever they may be found." 

This was written in 1838, and his translator and annota- 
tor endeavored, in the publication of the work here, to attri- 
bute the remark to the then condition of parties ; but time 
has but vindicated the general truth of the observation. 

As Pennsylvanians, with such a rich heritage as we 
have received from our great founder, cannot we do 
something to remove this reproach from our country? 
Is not this a fit moment, when we are recalling the virtues 
of Penn, to resolve to be more worthy of him, and of that 
great principle of his Society which recognizes the " inner 
lieht " as the beacon to guide our lives, and not the io-)ies 
faljii of popular applause and temporary prosperity. 

When Mr. Biddle resumed his seat, Mr. William 6. 
Vaux rose and offered the following resolutions, which 
were unanimously adopted: 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented 
to the donors of the Penn Manuscripts for their munificent 
gift, and that their comniunication, together with their 
names, be entered at large on the minutes of the Society. 

Resolved, That the .Society has heard with great interest 
the paper just read by Mr. Biddle, and respectfully request 
him to furnish it a copy of the same. 

THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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